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At first ABC stonewalled critics on the subject of “Lost” news due to be announced tomorrow at Comicon. Critics, cranky on the second-to-last day of the press tour, pushed back. Finally, a PR person tiptoed onstage and whispered in the ear of ABC Entertainment boss Stephen McPherson. He relented and released the following less than earth-shaking news: Harold Perrineau, who plays Michael on “Lost,” will return to the series this season.

Meanwhile, “Harry Potter” audio book reader Jim Dale will serve as narrator for ABC’s promising “Pushing Daisies” for the run of the series. “Pushing Daisies” is being promoted by the network as “a forensic fairy tale” created by Bryan Fuller (“Dead Like Me,” “Heroes,” “Wonderfalls”). Director Barry Sonnenfeld (the “Men in Black” movies) said he appreciated the early buzz the show is getting, with some critics even calling the show “Burtonesque,” a reference to Tim Burton’s “Edward Scissorhands” and “Beetle Juice” in particular.

I’ve now seen the networks’ pilots for fall, a long slog through a mix of 25 dramas (mostly), dramedies and comedies and it looks like we’re in for an unspectacular season. There’s no buzz like there was for “Desperate Housewives,” “Lost” or “Ugly Betty.” The only series that captured my imagination was ABC’s “Pushing Daisies,” a visual stunner that invents its own proudly artificial universe much the way “Housewives” did. The loving couple is credible even if the fairy-tale premise isn’t supposed to be (he has a special power to bring her back from the dead, now they can’t touch or she dies. Again).

The comedy originally titled “Sam I Am,” now known as “Samantha Be Good” after a frown from the Seuss estate, starring Christina Applegate as an amnesiac, is the best-looking comedy on tap.

Too many “Heroes”-wannabes, sci-fi and superpowered pilots, should shake down quickly in September.

All a long way of saying the nation’s TV critics gather in Los Angeles starting next week to preview series, interview producers/writers/actors and network execs and studio bosses, shmooze and take the temperature of the industry. Chances are the changing newspaper industry will be a hot topic, too.

Imagine that: NBC not only renewed “Friday Night Lights,” as expected, but moved it to a night people can remember–Fridays.

The fall schedule includes another time-traveling drama (“Journeyman”), and a push for “Heroes” that includes viewer voting online to add characters. Amazingly, “Law & Order” survives to see an 18th season.

The network repays a debut to Jerry Seinfeld by adding comedy shorts designed to promote his upcoming movie. The Candace Bushnell (“Sex and the City”) dramedy “Lipstick Jungle” won’t show up until January.

The slate was announced in New York this morning, kicking off upfront week as the networks make their cases for advertisers that TV is still the top destination in a world of digital choices.

Favorite quote from NBC Prez Kevin Reilly in a conference call with reporters today, regarding the emphasis on sci-fi superheroes on the schedule: “This is by no means an effort to replicate what we had in ‘Heroes’,” he said. As all followers of the media know, that translates to “This is an effort to replicate the ratings/critical success we had in ‘Heroes’.”

Can we talk about GE’s “One Second Theater”?
I consider myself somewhat beyond the reach of conventional advertising–I fast-forward through ads on my DVR, I watch preview DVDs with no commercials, I almost never sit still for 30-second spots. Yet there I was, tonight, going slo-mo through the Princess and Frog commercial (a fairy tale from the frog’s point of view), within the regular GE commercial within “Heroes” on NBC.
They got me.
This is a new twist on advertising, a bit of extra content gussied up as entertainment. I didn’t just watch it, I studied it, frame by frame.
You have to have digital DVRs to see this value-added bit of commercial within commercial, the latest in the “Dancin’ Elephant” line of “hidden” spots. “A secret inside.”
What do you think?
Is it just more selling? Or is it an innovative use of media that deserves applause from students of media?
Watch: http://www.ge.com/onesecondtheater/indexFlash.html

Much as it pains me to say so, “24” is trying my patience.
My Monday night DVR regimen is a heavy three hours–“24,” “Heroes” and “Studio 60″–so expectations are high. The father-brother-Jack storyline, complete with torture and abduction, stretches the series’ own loose limits. Apparently, having conquered heroin addiction, near death and a Chinese prison, en route to stopping nuclear explosions, the only universe left for the writers to explore was the Bauer family.
Love Peter MacNicol, love James Cromwell. Still not sure I’m buying it.
“Heroes,” meanwhile, finds humor in the comic-book caliber apocalyptic suspense, even as Hiro confronts daddy (“GULP!”) and our favorite cheerleader finds mommy. Next week, her real dad turns up as well. The threads do want to come together here. “The future is filled with promise, the present is rife with expectations.” We’re all in.
Aaron Sorkin is throwing romantic comedy crutches at “Studio 60,” hoping to woo viewers who found the scripts too pedantic. The self-referential shtick is intriguing–complaining about the dolphin girl promo by fictional NBS which was actually the dolphin girl promo by NBC; stranding potential lovers on a rooftop to have them note that they’re in a classic romantic comedy moment. I’d be surprised if the series gets a pickup for next season; enjoy it while it lasts.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried,” said Tim Kring, creator of “Heroes,” about going up against “24” on Monday night (at 9 p.m. in Denver). He expects to take “a little hit from them” in the ratings.
The good news is that the upcoming “pod” of episodes will cause the previously disconnected characters to cross paths in unexpected ways.
NBC today renewed the show for a full season, which Kring said will end with a “fun cliffhanger.”
Kring’s earlier fears about audience “subtitle fatigue” have not been realized, he said.
“Putting the subtitles close to the faces, like a comic book bubble, was a stroke of genius,” said Masi Oka, whose Japanese-speaking character, Hiro, has become a favorite.
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Joanne Ostrow has been watching TV since before "reality" required quotation marks. "Hill Street Blues" was life-changing. If Dickens, Twain or Agatha Christie were alive today, they'd be writing for television. And proud of it.